Is there a point in life when everything earns double value because it reminds you of something else from the past? This morning Ralph has discovered a just-hatching spider egg sac. From a distance it looks solid, but on closer examination the mass is really hundreds of tiny spiders. They can be startled into mobility when something moves too close, in my case a camera lens about two inches from their little love-in. As I take my shots I picture myself reading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web to my second graders. Wilbur was not more entranced by Charlotte’s emerging children than I am now. If I check on them frequently over the next few days, will I see them parachuting off to new lives in other parts of the backyard? Would any of the hundreds of students who listened to me read this book have the same memories if they were to encounter this spider nursery? For more pictures of the spiders, see http://www.pbase.com/patsysj/spider .